al gift
"Might clothe the limbs of one without a soul,
"Stupidly dull, that all her anxious care
"The green-hair'd mother on her son employ'd;
"Arms wrought with art so great? Knows he the least
"The shield's engravings? Ocean, or the land:
"The lofty sky; the planets; Pleiaeds bright;
"Hyaeds; the bear, ne'er plung'd beneath the main;
"Orion's glittering sword, or various towns?
"Arms he demands he cannot understand.
"But how asserts he I the toils of war
"Evaded; joining late the fighting host,
"Nor sees he scandalizes too the fame
"Of great Pelides? If indeed a crime
"Dissembling must be call'd,--dissembled both.
"If faulty all delay, the first I came.
"A tender wife me kept; a tender tie,
"A mother, kept Achilles. Our life's spring
"To them was given, the rest reserv'd for you.
"Nor should I fear, even were this crime, I share
"With such a man, of all defence deny'd.
"Yet his disguise Ulysses' cunning found:
"Ajax ne'er found Ulysses. Needs surprize
"To hear th' abusing of his booby tongue,
"When with like guilt he stigmatizes you?
"Shames most that I this Palamedes brought,
"Falsely accus'd your sentence to receive,
"Or that you doom'd him so accus'd to die?
"But Nauplius' son not ev'n defence could urge,
"So plain his crime appear'd; nor did you trust
"The accusation heard: obvious you saw
"The bribe for which you doom'd him. Nor of blame
"Deserve I ought, that Philoctetes stays
"In Vulcan's Lemnos. You the deed excuse:
"All to the deed assented. Yet my voice,
"Persuasive, will I not deny, I us'd;
"That spar'd from travel, and from war's fatigue,
"In rest he might his cruel pains assuage:
"He lik'd my words, and lives. My counsel here
"Not merely faithful (though our faith the whole
"Our promise can insure) but happy prov'd.
"His presence since the seers prophetic ask
"T' atchieve the fall of Troy, dispatch not me;
"Ajax will better go, will better soothe
"With eloquence of tongue, a man who burns
"With raging choler, and with smarting pains:
"Or with some stratagem him thence allure.
"But Simois' stream shall sooner backward flow;
"Ida unwooded stand: Achaia aid
"The Trojan power, than Ajax' stupid soul
"Shall help the Greeks, when first my anxious mind
"Striving to aid you, has been found to fail.
"O, stubborn Philoctetes! though enrag'd
"Against thy comrades, 'gainst the king, and me;
"Th